affecting the Corn-Crops. 
81 
Crioceris melanopa — The Oat Crloceris. 
I have read of the gelatinous larva of a Tenthredo* which causes 
the leaves of the barley to wither by feeding upon the upper sur- 
face, but have never met with it. I have, however, found a larva 
of a similar nature, which I expected would change to the 
Tenthredo, but to my great surprise it eventually produced a 
beetle ; and as the economy of this species is unnoticed by 
authors, I will transcribe my notes. On the 18th and 20th June, 
1842, I found (m the leaves of some oats coming into ear in a 
field in the neighbourhood of Sherborne, Dorsetshire, some slug- 
like larvae which had eaten the epidermis in longitudinal lines. A 
small one was brown, mouled with ochre; it was very glossy, but 
looked slimv like a little slug; the minute head was black, and 
it had 6 small black pectoral feet ; it was ovate or pear-shaped, 
being slightly narrowed towards the head. A larger specimen was 
more ochreous, and after being immersed in water for 24 hours 
it became perfectly of that colour : it then appeared transversely 
striated and wrinkled, with minute warts behind the head, which 
was brown ; along each side was an elevated line of little brown 
bristly points ; and the 6 feet were brownish towards their tips.f 
These larvae feed down the leaves sideways, gnawing with their 
little mandibles an even line between the striae, either above or 
below the leaf, leaving only the membrane, which often dries and 
cracks, making a hole of greater or lesser extent. In other in- 
stances they had occasioned ochreous spots where they rested, 
and where their old skins had been cast off, as they increased in 
size. I placed one in a box with some bits of earth, amongst 
which it formed a spongy whitish cocoon, irregular in form ex- 
ternally ; but as I was not stationary at the time, its economy was 
probably interfered with, and the cocoon may be more regularly 
formed under natural circumstances. On the lOih of August I 
had the satisfaction to find in the box a specimen of Crioceris 
melanopa, a pretty beetle which is not uncommon in corn-fields 
and on rushes from the middle of April to the end of September. 
It belongs to the Order Coleopteka, Family Criocerid/e, and 
the Genus Crioceris. The species was named by Linnaeus, — 
4. Crioceris merdigera. It is shining; the head is dark greenish 
blue, minutely punctured with a deep groove at the base ; the 
face is concave ; the mouth is pitchy ; the eyes are black and 
* This genus belongs to the same family as the At halia spinarum : vide 
Royal Agric. Journal, vol. ii. p. 371. 
t It now resembled, in form, the larva of the Asparagus beetle, Crioceris 
Asparagi, which belongs to the same genus ; vide the Gardener's Chronicle, 
vol. V. p. 592. Another species, C. merdigera, produces the larvae which 
infest and render the white lilies of our gardens offensive. 
VOL. VII, G 
